Monday, August 20, 2007

Last month for my birthday, my mom and dad asked me if I would like to have my grandma's cedar chest restored for use in my house.

I've used my grandma's 1930's bedroom set for 15 or so years. The walnut cedar chest doesn't exactly belong to the rosewood set, but my grandma always used it to store her linens at the foot of the bed. The chest was in pretty bad shape with pieces of veneer missing and deep scratches all across the finish.

My answer should be pretty obvious.

My mom knew of an older gentleman in New Ulm, MN who had originally restored the bed for me many years ago (my mom grew up in and around that area). She tracked down his phone number and gave him a call to see if she could coax him out of retirement to work on the cedar chest. He said yes.

So a couple of weeks ago, my mom & I drove down to New Ulm to pick up the restored cedar chest. It turned out great. I wish I had though to take a photo of the pre-restored chest. Let's just say the change is pretty dramatic.

We also stopped in a local antique store just to take a look at what they had on hand. If you read my blog regularly, you know no good could come of this. Of course, I spotted a great old walnut/maple parlor table that I absolutely could not live without. I've been looking for one for a while now. I suspect it is the German heritage that accounts for the extra carving on the parlor tables you see down there. You rarely see that detail of design on these tables in the Twin Cities.

After our big "score," we drove up and down the streets looking at well maintained brick bungalows, foursquares, restored Victorians, old churches and some historic monuments. We even ate lunch in a restaurant owned by the father of my 6th grade arch enemy (long non-house related story)

(Try to ignore the lovely waves in the even lovier carpeting.....a parting gift to me from the PO)

2 comments:

I have my grandmother's cedar chest (it's not as nice as yours, but has similar condition issues and the same "aroma" stamp), and just wanted to let you know that Lane will send a replacement lock for free so you can't inadvertently lock children in the chest. There was a lawsuit -- kids suffocated. Maybe your lock has already been replaced by the restorer? If not, it's an easy matter. Just google their website and it will provide directions.